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Thursday, July 04, 2013

Two Cheers for Democracy

Two Cheers for Democracy | Benjamin Wiker | CWR

Patriotic, modest, and tempered praise for our present form of government

Happy
237th birthday, America! Two cheers for democracy!

Why
only two? Aren’t we supposed to cheer wildly for democracy as unambiguously
good? Don’t we have a moral obligation to hold up democracy as the best—indeed,
the only legitimate—form of government? Isn’t it the only form of government
that expresses the fundamental moral and theological truth that all human
beings are equal, have equal dignity, are equally children of God, have equal
rights, and all of the other equal things anyone can think of?

Well,
certainly if I were running for political office, I would have to cheer for
democracy with unbridled exuberance. I would have to say something like, “Three
cheers for democracy?!—no, make that a hundred!”

And if
the other candidate suggested that two cheers might be more modestly
appropriate, then I’d win hands down. “Two cheers, you say? This man is a totalitarian,
a bigot, an enemy of the common man. I think we see who is for the people, and who is against.”

Then
I’d be cheered wildly, and get elected in a landslide.

But
I’m not running for office, so it’s a lot easier to speak the truth.

If we
recognize the humor in that last comment (even if only as sarcasm, the lowest
end of the humor spectrum), then we realize, in part, why we might consider
giving only two cheers for democracy.

We
realize that, all too often, trying to get elected means bending one’s message
to the popular ear, trying to make oneself salable, making use of the exact
same techniques as ad agencies use to sell Coke and deodorant, manipulating the
masses through slick ads, mud-slinging ads, mawkishly patriotic ads,
disingenuous ads.

Getting
elected means telling people what they want to hear, rather than telling them
the truth about the actual political situation. So that those who flatter and
fawn, who look the best, speak the best, are able to rouse the most passion,
are the ones who get elected—rather than those who might actually be able to do
the best job.

What
if the actual best person to be our president were a short, shy, dumpy, bald
guy with a biggish nose and crooked teeth, who spoke with a squeaky stutter?
Would he get elected?